1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus such as a video tape recorder ("VTR" hereinafter) and a digital audio tape recorder("DAT") for reproducing information recorded in slanting tracks on a recording tape such as a magnetic tape.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is important for a DAT or VTR which can record and play 2 to 8 hours of programs such as music and moving pictures to search a recorded position of desired program quickly.
An example of a search of a position on a tape at high speed ("high speed search" hereinafter) for a DAT is shown in "SERVO TECHNOLOGY OF R-DAT" by Akihiko Hitomi, et al (IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, vol. CE-32, No. 3, August 1986, PP430-431). In the example described in this report, when the tape speed is made 200 times faster than that used in normal reproduction, the speed of the rotary cylinder on which a head is mounted is 3025 r.p.m. in the fast forward ("FF") direction and 994 r.p.m. in the rewind ("REW") direction. This allows the speed component in the track direction of the reproduction head to be equal to that in the normal reproduction so that the head can read tape position information recorded on a track.
By this method, however, it is not assured that the increase of the tape speed coincides with the increase of the rotary cylinder speed in the transition stage when the tape speed is accelerated from the stopped state to a speed 200 times faster than the normal reproduction speed. Therefore, the track direction speed component of the head would become different from that used in the normal reproduction in the transition stage, so that there would be the possibility that the tape position information could not be read.